The present invention relates to ice dispensing, and in particular to an improved apparatus for and method of dispensing selected quantities of ice.
In the fast food and beverage service industries, it is desirable to provide means for conveniently dispensing quantities of ice into cups to facilitate service of a large number of cold beverages to customers in a relatively short period of time. It is also desirable to maintain repeatable quality and quantity of drinks from one to the next. In order to achieve these goals, it is necessary to have a means for automatically vending precise selected quantities or portions of ice into cups.
Typical ice dispensers consist of a hopper for storing a quantity of crushed, cracked, flaked or cubed ice bodies, a rotatable agitator in the hopper for preventing congealing of the ice and for urging ice out of the hopper during vending, and a single gate at and for controlling vending of ice through a dispensing opening from the hopper. When the gate is opened and the agitator rotated, ice exists the hopper opening for being vended into a cup. Operation of the dispenser may be controlled either by a cup operated lever or a hand operated button. In a common type of dispenser, ice is vended for as long as the lever or button is pressed, and stops when it is released.
In cases where it is desired to automatically dispense a measured quantity of ice, it has been customary to operate the dispenser gate by a timer circuit, such that the gate uncovers the hopper opening and dispensing occurs for a preset period of time in response to actuation of the operating lever or button. Such ice portion control systems have several advantages, including simplicity, ease of adjustment and flexibility to accommodate several different ice portions by pressing one of several operating levers or buttons to vary the timed dispensing period. A major disadvantages is that the accuracy with which selected quantities of ice may be dispensed is extremely limited, since the flow rate of ice out of the dispensing gate varies with the amount of ice in the hopper, with the orientation of the agitator arms to the hopper opening, and with the speed of rotation of the agitator. Also, some randomness in flow rate occurs naturally as to the ice bodies exiting the hopper opening. The resulting control over portion accuracy is found to be generally poorer than necessary for repeatable quality and quantity of drinks from one to the next.
To provide greater accuracy in the quantity of ice dispensed, there have recently been developed multiple gate systems that vend measured fixed volumes of ice, rather than timed portions. In such systems, a vertically oriented chute receives and is filled with ice from a hopper. A dispensing gate is at a lower end of the chute, and when closed supports the ice column in the chute. A plurality of portion control gates are located along the length of the tube, such that various fixed volumes of ice to be dispensed are determined by the quantity of ice in the chute between the lower dispensing gate and a selected one of the portion gates. To vend a selected quantity of ice, a predetermined one of the portion gates is extended into the chute and the lower dispensing gate is then opened, allowing the known volume of ice in the chute between the portion and dispensing gates to drop into a cup. This type of system provides ice portions of significantly more accurate quantities than the single gate timed portion system, and has been found to work successfully in applications that require repeatable and accurate ice portion dispensing. Two such measured volume dispensers are taught by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,226,269 and 4,496,087. Disadvantages of such systems, however, include their relative complexity, inflexibility and lack of adjustability. A portion gate is required for each different ice quantity to be vended, and changing portion sizes involves mechanical adjustment of gate positions or a change in the cross section of the chute.